Nightmares
by ForbiddenKHfan216
Summary: A view about Kingdom Hearts from the perspective of Sora. Slightly out of character for the cheerful bugger.
1. Chapter 1

**My little commentary (through Sora's eyes anyway) about something in the game that always bugged me. **

**Disclaimers: Kingdom Hearts and as such, Sora, is not mine. He belongs to Nomura and I only borrow him for my own purposes, only to put him back safe and sound when I'm done. **

* * *

_**Nightmares**_

Do you want to know what the scariest part was?

Well, part of it comes from the fact that no one believes you. I can sit in my classroom all day, learn about math and language and stuff, but no one will believe me. I'm a Keyblade Master. I've saved the world. I know magic, I'm strong enough to throw around any islander that gets it in their head to try to bully me. I'm _definitely_ not the same kid that disappeared a few years ago. No way. But no one believes me if I try to explain where I got these powers.

I summon my Keyblade. It's a neat trick, sure, but who believes me when I say that this weapon can destroy evil? Exactly no one except for my best friends, Riku and Kairi. They know because they have them too.

In the end, I just sit here in this classroom and learn about math. It's not going to do me any good, though; I'm a hero. An unsung hero, sure, but a hero nonetheless. I can promise you that I never once used the Pythagorean Theorem in the middle of battle to calculate what one of my enemies was doing. I usually just throw about fifty fireballs at it, whack it to either Donald or Goofy, we destroy it together, and then call it a night.

But… for some reason… that's still not why I have nightmares at night.

Not the math, of course. Though math tests suck. It's… something else. Something that only I've ever really thought about. Kairi was stuck on the island or frozen with the Princesses. Riku was trapped in the Dark World with the King. Me, I was asleep for a year with Donald and Goofy.

That's something I can't really forgive her for. The witch that trapped me there, I mean. She took my memories. Something important to me happened in that time period and she took it away. Without asking me! … Well, she probably _did_ ask but… it's still not fair… I forgot everything about her. That… I've never wanted to forget a friend…

No, that's not what scares me. What scares me… that's… what scares me…

Is the Heartless.

The Heartless.

That's it.

The Heartless is what scares me.

They were people once. They were people just like me, just like my friends. My family. They were people who were taken over by the Darkness and warped into creatures that could do nothing but convert even more people into what they were. Hollow. Empty. Evil. Everyone calls them evil. They put on this label to make themselves forget what they're fighting.

That Shadow? It could be someone's baby. Someone's little girl or boy that wandered into trouble and just… got taken.

That Soldier? Someone's lover. Someone's dad. Someone's mom. There's someone out there, maybe, that keeps waiting for that person to come home. And maybe, just maybe, they miss them. Or they stay up at night like me wondering where they went, how they went missing.

The Heartless are someone's lovers, children, husband, wife, best friend, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, neighbor, mother, father.

And I'm the one who kills them.

I'm the one with the weapons that sends them away. Do they die? Do they feel pain when they're like that? If they feel pain, do they feel their own Hearts inside of them being eaten away? Do they remember what it was like to be human? I did. I did_. I did_.

I remembered.

And that's what gives me nightmares.

Because I'm supposed to be the hero but I still kill people to save the others.

They were human once.

They were almost all human once, the Emblem Heartless. They were people once. They were people just like me, just like my friends. But I didn't save _them_.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

I didn't slept well last night.

I mean, I almost never do. It's been a weird transition, going from camping (or hiding inside of the Gummi ship) and having to get up at all hours of the night due to Heartless and Nobody attacks to being able to get a full eight or nine hours in my own bed. I wake up every few hours, Keyblade in hand and paranoid that something's in my house _right __**now**_ and I have to get it or else it'll hurt my mom, dad, and siblings. Then I have to patrol the house real quick and check in my brother's and sister's bedrooms and then finally the master bedroom and then my room and check to see if all the windows and doors are locked. That usually lulls me back to sleep before I wake up again in another two hours. Then I have to do it again.

I yawn again in the middle of my math class, doodling another Heartless on the paper I'm 'supposed' to be working on. The teacher is talking up in front but whatever he's saying doesn't make any sense. Math is too hard to understand, especially when you're tired from wandering the house all night. Not doing it for two years was enough so that I have no idea what any of my classmates are scribbling on their papers. I have no idea what he's saying at all.

I don't feel my eyes shut and I don't feel my head clunk onto the desk and I don't feel myself fall asleep.

* * *

_I see the calm, emotionlessness smirk of Xemnas floating in front of me. His voice is far away, distant and inaudible. My friends, Riku and Donald and Goofy and even Kairi, turn to me and beg me to fight him, to destroy him for the sake of the worlds. I can't say no. I'm the Keyblade Master. It's up to me (and Riku and the King) to protect the worlds. Riku and I nod at each other before charging forward, Ultima in my hand and Way to the Dawn in his. _

_There's a loud clashing noise as the two powerful weapons strike against his Ethereal Blades. Metal on metal, even though his weapons are made of pure energy. He smiles. And suddenly, my weapon grows heavy in my hand. What? No! _

"_You __**will**__ fail at this rate," He exclaims in a way that would have been proud if he had had a heart. I turn to Riku, to beg him for help, but he is silent and once again, he's dressed in the dark suit that had accompanied him when we fought against each other two years ago. His eyes shine gold as the two Darkness-possessed creatures reach out to me._

_He grabs my shoulder and I scream out a fire spell. _

_Then suddenly, I smell something all too familiar that wakes me up immediately._

* * *

My teacher's hand is ripped free from my shoulder by the shockwave that is the Firaga spell and he goes crashing into another desk, unconscious because I had cast it right into his face. I hear the screams from my classmates as I leap onto the desk, flipping over it and landing next to him. The Keyblade clatters to the floor, skittering across the room as I kick it away.

Immediately, I start chanting Curaga spells over and over his body, begging with each one that my teacher's okay. The charred skin regrows slowly and soon the exposed muscle and bone is covered again and he is breathing much more easily. I look up at my classmates but the fourteen year olds are cowering behind the teacher's desk, too terrified to even look at me or to go for help.

It's the same look I've seen people give to the Heartless and it makes me feel that much worse knowing that to these kids, I'm now no better than the monsters.

I pick up my bookbag, slung it over my shoulder, and quickly make my exit out the window.

* * *

I spend the day hiding inside of the Secret Place.

If anyone finds me here, it'll be Riku and Kairi and I'm okay with talking to them. I pass the time finishing my worksheet and reading the next chapter in my English book and sparring with myself. Scorch marks and ice soon line the cavern walls but it doesn't make me feel better. Even smacking the stone with the Keyblade only alleviates a little bit of the frustration.

Xehanort.

It's all Xehanort's fault.

Sometimes I wonder if I can still feel his Darkness inside of me from when he made me mess up on the Mastery Exam. I mean, if I could, that would mean I would get the Darkness sensor that Riku has. That'd be useful, I guess. I'd be able to tell if there were Heartless around and protect my family. But I don't. I don't have it.

All I have are nightmares and the knowledge that I nearly killed one of my teachers.

I drop to my knees after three hours, too exhausted to fight anymore and too lazy to try to deal with the next bit of homework I have.

I just lean back onto the sand and look up at the ceiling, the only place that we couldn't reach as kids to draw on. It's funny but I know Riku can reach it now if he stands on his tiptoes. I could probably do it too but it's not like I know what to draw anymore.

"I knew I'd find you in here," A familiar voice scolds and I turn to see my mom stooping her way into the larger cavern. Kairi must have told her about the Secret Place. The moment she can stand up straight, Mom folds her arms across her chest and stares hard at me. "What happened?" She demands.

I turn away and start doodling in the sand, unable to look at her. Once again, my fingers automatically make the shape of a Shadow Heartless and then into the Soldier.

She softens before pushing through the sand and sitting down next to me. Putting an arm around my shoulder, I soon find myself buried in her dark brown hair. I close my eyes. It smells sweet and like home, paopu flowers and sea breeze. I hug her back and I feel her hands move to my shoulders, gently messaging them in a way that immediately makes me feel better.

"Sora, you know you can tell me anything," Mom says quietly.

I nod, tears prickling in my eyes and choking me. I don't want to talk about it. I already feel awful without having to drag Mom into it.

"It was an accident," I whisper back and she nods. I know she believes me. She just hugs me that much tighter and her hands work my shoulders that much more. "I didn't mean to," I say again before hugging her tightly, practically crawling into her lap in need of comfort.

I wish I was a little kid like my brother and sister.

They don't need to worry about the Heartless. They don't dream about the people they weren't able to save. They don't dream about megalomaniacs that would destroy all of the worlds. So I just lie there in my mother's arms, pretending I was a little kid and not the hero of the Keyblade. I'm supposed to be the hero. I like being a hero, I know I do. I like being special.

But I hate not being able to save everyone.

So I let myself go limp in my mother's arms and I pretend to be her son, just her little boy, for a while longer.

We talk for a while, not about my teacher or the fire spell I shoved in his face but about the twins and Dad and how it'd be fun to go fishing with the three of them.

Mom and Dad had missed me a lot during my travels. When my memory got wiped and they forgot about me, they had found something missing in their lives. Even with pictures of me in their rooms and on the walls of the house, they couldn't see their teenage son in them. So, eventually, they had two more kids. My little brother and sister. They were one and a half right now. It scared me out of my skin the minute I unlocked the door to my house and found a toddler staring up at me from a playpen.

It had taken a while to convince the girl that had been babysitting them that I lived there, especially since I didn't even know their names or how old they were. According to her, any good big brother would have known and that I was trying to steal from the house.

I practically threw munny at her to convince her that I didn't need it. But it had all been worth it when my mom had come through the door with her arms full of groceries only to recognize her 'delinquent, runaway son and you are in _so much __**trouble**_, Sora!' and hug me.

I lean against her shoulder as she keeps on rubbing mine. "Sora?" Mom asks, making me look up at her. "Your teacher's fine but we have to talk to the counselor, okay?" She informs me before helping me get to my feet so we could leave the Secret Place.

Oh sure, let's talk to the counselor again. The same guy who called me a liar when I told him I'd been traveling around the galaxy saving the worlds and protecting people from monsters.

I must have made a face or something because she glares at me.

"What?" I ask but she just sighs, rolling her eyes up to the heavens and asking for patience with me. "Mom, he said I'm a compulsive liar and that I need to be medicated."

"He said the same thing about Riku when Riku told him that he hoped that Darkness would end up eating his organs," She admits with a bit of a sigh. She rubs her temples before smiling at me, obviously agreeing that the school counselor was a jerk. I wasn't going to correct that one but I allow her to walk me out of the cave and back onto the beach.

The sun burns on my skin after being inside of the coolness of the cave. If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine it's the Pridelands sun or even the setting sun of Twilight Town.

I can almost hear the paddling noise that's Donald's footsteps or the weird sounds of Goofy's laughter.


End file.
